Lamentations 3:19-26

Lamentations was written in the aftermath of one of the darkest moments in Israel’s history. In 586 BC, the Babylonian army destroyed Jerusalem, burned the temple, and carried many of the people into exile, and the author of this book, traditionally understood to be the prophet Jeremiah, wrote five poems of grief over what he had witnessed. Chapter 3 sits at the center of the book, and in verses 19 and 20 we meet a man who cannot stop remembering his affliction. He describes his suffering as wormwood and gall, two of the most bitter substances known in the ancient world, and he admits that the memory of it has left his soul bowed down within him.

Verse 21 marks a turning point in the poem, because even though his circumstances have not changed, the prophet deliberately calls something else to mind, and that act of remembering gives him hope. He recalls that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, that God’s mercies never come to an end, and that those mercies are new every morning. His hope rests entirely on the faithfulness of God, which is why he can say that the Lord is his portion and that he will hope in Him.

When James points his readers to the prophets as an example of suffering and patience, Jeremiah is one of the clearest pictures of what he means. Jeremiah spent years delivering a message that few wanted to hear, endured rejection and imprisonment, and then watched the judgment he had warned about come to pass. Out of that suffering came the confession that the Lord is good to those who wait for Him, which sounds very much like James’s reminder that the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

Verse 26 adds one more thread to this week’s passage. The prophet says that it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord, and that kind of quiet trust leaves very little room for the grumbling James warns against. When we fill our minds with the faithfulness of God, our waiting begins to sound less like complaint and more like hope.